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OUR DUTIES TO THE SLAVE. 



SERMON, 



riSEAC'ITED BEFOKE THE 



Original Congregational (tftjurd) anfc Society, 



WRENTHAM, MASS., 



THANKSGIVING DAY, 



NOVEMBER 28, 1846. 



BY HORACE JAMES. 

JUNIOR PASTOR. 



BOST N : 
PRINTED BY RICHARDSON & FILMER, 

No. 142 1-2 Washington Street. 

1847. 






PREFACE 



The substance of the following Discourse was prepared amid the 
hurry of numerous engagements, and preached in the ordinary course 
of professional duty on Thanksgiving day. It is reluctantly furnished 
for the press, at the earnest solicitation of a large number of my 
people. I would fain let it go into forgetfulness, or live only in the 
memory of those who value the instructions and warnings of a pas- 
tor, were it not that many who could have wished to hear it, were 
prevented by the inclement season. While, therefore, the sermon 
can prefer no claim to the possession of artistic excellence, it is 
affectionately commended to the good sense of the reader, with a full 
conviction that the views it contains — which are neither original or 
new — are in the main correct, and will ere long be substantially 
adopted by every honest, thinking man. 



E R 



"Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. 
Deliver the poor and needy ; rid them out of the hand of the wicked." — Psalm 
82 : 3, 4. 

To whom are these inspired words more appropriately applicable 
than to the American Slaves ? And what occasion can be more 
suitable for a remembrance of their wrongs, and of our duties to 
them, than this day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God ; this social 
New England festival ; this blessed season set apart and sacredly 
devoted to the domestic affections, and to all the tenderest, sweetest 
sympathies of life ? 

Nor is the minister of the gospel justly chargeable with going out 
of his reckoning, who lifts up his voice to-day in behalf of enslaved 
millions, even though he touch on politics, and venture to assert that 
parties and administrations have done grievous wrong. For it is 
allowed, by common consent, as I have understood it, that ministers, 
on occasions of Thanksgiving and Fast, may say just what they 
please, upon any subject whatever, provided only it be truthful and 
apt, without danger of incurring the censure of any one. Be this 
as it may, there are those who will, with conscientious earnestness, 
give utterance at such times to truths which they deem to be of vital 
and absorbing interest, but which are so connected with secular 
affairs that they ought not to be discussed upon the Sabbath day. 

It is, moreover, in accordance with the recommendation of our 
chief magistrate to make American Slavery a theme of public 
mention on this festive day. By the very letter of the proclamation 
our attention is directed to it. His Excellency, the Governor, after 
alluding in his proclamation to some considerations pertaining to us 
as individuals, and as citizens of this commonwealth, recommends 
humble prayer to God, in behalf of our common country^ in five 
particulars. If any one of these be especially noticed on this occa- 
sion, it will be seen that it must of necessity be the last of the five, 
which relates to slavery ; for this is the sum, the remainder, the 
quotient and the product, of all the rest. Solve the problem by any 
possible rule, and slavery is the uniform result. 

The first petition recommended is, that God tw will look propitiously 
upon the people of our sister states, and bless them." So far as the 



slaveholding states are concerned, this can never be the case till 
slavery has ceased to exist in them. Till then, they must and tvill be 
cursed. A moral mildew has blighted their soil, then- schools and 
their churches, as well as the intellect and heart_ of their people. 
The name of divine blessing cannot be associated with the institution 
of slavery. 

The second is, " that he will impart wisdom to the government of 
this Union, and direct to such measures as shall promote the best 
interests of the whole country." Until slavery is no more, the 
"wisdom" of the "government of this Union" will be slave-policy, 
and little else, as it has been for the most part heretofore. And as 
to "the interests of the whole country''' being promoted while the 
"peculiar institution" remains, the idea is utterly preposterous. No 
rational man can entertain it. 

The third petition recommended is this : " that He will inspire those 
who conduct the administration of our public affairs, with an elevated 
patriotism, a love of justice and of peace." How long would it take, 
it might be asked, to enshrine "a love of justice" — to say nothing 
of "patriotism" — in the bosom of slaveholders and slaveholding 
rulers? And as for "peace," if they can have it and slavery too, 
very well ; but if not, war inexorable ! 

The fourth reads thus: "that He will cause a speedy temiination 
to be put to that war which exists between this and a neighboring 
republic, so that the soldiers of their armies shall no more imbrue 
their hands with each others' blood, and the sound of lamentation 
and mourning shall no more be heard for those who are slain in battle." 
" That war" will not cease, if its authors have their own way, until 
the horse-leech of slavery, which cries give, give, give, is completely 
satiated with blood ! It is not the poor, half-clad, dying " soldiers" 
that are thus "imbruing their hands;" it is those in the seat of power, 
the very " seat of the beast" of slavery, that " cry havoc, and let 
slip the dogs of war." Their hands are red with blood ; and to wash 
out its stains would make " the multitudinous seas incarnadine." 
Slavery is the root of the matter ; the Mexican Avar is only a twig 
of the tree. 

The fifth petition is, " that God will appoint and give efficiency to 
the means which shall, in his own good time, exhibit to the world a 
practical illustration of that prominent and beautiful truth put forth 
in our Declaration of Independence, ' that all men are created equal,' 
and present this great confederacy of states without a bondman 
within its limits." Here we come to the bottom. Here we have the 
spring and fruitful source of almost all our national evils, and the 
greatest obstacle in the path of our national prosperity. Well may 
it be remembered. At the recommendation of our honored governor 
I notice it to-day. 

The words, however, which stand at the head of this discourse, 
emanate from a higher than human authority. They come to us, 
not in the form of recommendation, but of moral precept binding 



the conscience. And, as I before said, they are strictly applicable 
to the American slaves. Observe their import : 

" Defend the poor and fatherless." Are they not " poor ?" Robbed 
of their liberty, their property, their comfort, their time, their child- 
ren, their domestic peace and purity, their manhood, their Bible, 
their God, and their immortal hopes ; — who may be considered poor, 
if they are not? And surely, they are "fatherless." A slave can 
have no father ; the slave law recognises none ; it blots out one half 
of the fifth commandment. The slave follows the condition of his 
mother. His real father may be his master, or his master's son, or 
a member of Congress,* or the husband of his mother — it makes 
no diiference to him ; the cruel code of oppression has pronounced 
him fatherless. 

" Do justice to the afflicted and needy." Is the slave not 
" afflicted ?" Who more so ? Everything which men hold dear in 
life, except life itself, is ruthlessly torn from him. Well might 
he employ the language of the sorrowing prophet, (had he a Bible 
from which to read it,) " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? 
Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which 
is done unto me." And if the curse of poverty, orphanage, and 
affliction, combined in their worst forms, can render any one " needy," 
then such is the condition of the slave. 

" Rid them out of the hand of the wicked." Does not the term 
"wicked" describe those who keep them in hopeless bondage? I 
stop not to note exceptions, or throw a mantle over those few who 
ought to " obtain mercy," because they do it " ignorantly and in unbe- 
lief ;" but it has been truly observed that " the slaveholder's life is a 
life of utter and perpetual injustice. The worst Avrongs to which 
men are subject from their fellow-men, he is, clay by clay, inflicting. 
He lives on their unpaid toil. He shuts against them the book of 
knowledge. He prevents them from exercising any virtue, except 
honesty, patience, and long-suffering. He makes their intercourse 
together that of brutes, and forbids them to be, in any reasonable 
sense of the word, husbands and wives, parents and children. He 
fills their lives with hopelessness and woe." And does not all this, 
and more which might be added, establish his title to the name of 
" wicked V 

In addition, therefore, to the recommendation of our worthy gov- 
ernor, we have it in direction from our Chief Magistrate on high to 
remember to-day the American slaves. 

The text points out three duties, which, as responsible subjects of 
God's government, we owe to them. 

The first is that of defence. " Defend the poor and fatherless." 
Defend them at those points where they have been wronged. Defend 
them from being defrauded of their just and honorable gains. Defend 
them from cruel stripes ; from the cutlass, the whip, the bowie-knife 

* Mr. Paxton, a Virginia writer, tells us, in his work on slavery, that "the best blood in 
Virginia ilows in the veins of the slaves." 



and the thumb-screw. Defend them from the inhuman violence of 
self-styled Christian men ; from the wrist-gyves and manacles ; from 
the menacing blow of the angry mistress ; from the branding-iron, 
hissing and simmering in living flesh. Defend their families from 
being torn asunder, and their children from being sold into still more 
rigorous bondage in distant and unknown parts.* Defend them from 
the necessity of severing all the fondest ties of life — those sweet and 
hallowed bands which we all experience to-day in the overflowing love 
of our dear companions, our prattling children, and our aged parents 
stooping toward the grave. Thus God males it our duty to defend 
the poor and fatherless bondman. 

The second duty we owe them is justice. " Do justice to the 
afflicted and needy." It is out of the question that justice can be 
done a slave till he is made a freeman. Southern gentlemen may 
prate of justice, humanity, and kind treatment of servants ; they 
may even speak of entertaining real affection for them. But so long 
as the relation of master and slave subsists between them, and they 
" use his service without wages," all is sheer injustice and oppres- 
sion.! The kindest treatment ' deserves no commendation, and does 
not, in the least degree, affect the sin of slsive-holding. Such treat- 
ment is only designed to blind the eyes of justice ; but it cannot do 
even that. Obedience to this divine precept requires of every 
slaveholder that he set at liberty all his bondmen the first moment it 
is practicable, that he pay them for their honest toil, that he give them 
the means of education, and treat them in all respects like independ- 
ent, free-born men. Justice stops not a line short of this. And the 
same precept requires of us, that, so far as we are able, we use our 
influence for the promotion of the same result. Justice is only out- 
raged by efforts which end in ameliorating the condition of tho 
slaves. She demands that we set them free. 

The third duty enjoined is deliverance. " Deliver the poor and 
needy ; rid them out of the hand of the wicked." If there could 
be any doubt as to the result of doing "justice" to the slave, this 
additional precept removes it all, and makes the duty of their eman- 
cipation clear. It has been somewhat fashionable to affirm that 

*Prof. E. A. Andrews, in a work en slavery and the domestic slave-trade in the United 
States, gives a conversation with a trader, on the Potomac, in 1S35, as follows. " ' Do 
you often buy the wile without the husband?' 'Yes, very often; and frequently, too, 
they sell me the mother, while they keep the children. I have often known them take 
away tin infant from the mother's breast, and keep it, while they sold her. Children from on* 
o eighteen months old are now worth about one hundred dollars.' " —p. 417. 

f Mr. Jefferson, himself a slave-owner, says in his " Notes on Virginia :" " The whole 
commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pas- 
sions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submissions on the 
other." He also adds: " With what execrations should the statesman be loaded, who, 
permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms 
those into despots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part and the 
patriotism of the other. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that 
MS justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means 
only a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible 
events ; that it may become probable bv supernatural interference. The Almighty hat no 
attribute which can take sides with us in su<h a contest." 



measures of tliis kind fall not within our province ; that they are 
beyond our control, and consequently do not demand our notice. But 
not so saith the scripture. " Undo the heavy burdens ; let the op- 
pressed go free ; break every yoke. Execute ye judgment and 
righteousness ; and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppres- 
sor. He hath sent me to preach deliverance to the captives. Hid 
the poor and needy out of the hand of the wicked." As certain as 
the slaves are poor and needy, — and who can doubt it ? — it is your 
duty and mine, my hearers, to do what in us lies to deliver them out 
of the hand of their oppressors. I say not now in what manner. It 
should, by all means, be on a plan which is right and justifiable. I 
only ask you now to note the fact that it should be in some manner. 
The word of God requires it. In no individual is apathy excusable. 
These precepts rest authoritatively upon the soul of every person 
who has any direct or indirect connection with the evil in question. 
At our hands will they be required by the Supreme Lawgiver of 
Heaven and Earth. 

It is sufficient to have said thus much upon the nature of these 
three duties to the slave. They are by no means all we owe them. 
But they arc simple, plain, and easily comprehended. There is no 
escaping from the truth that they are binding, at this moment, with 
all the force of moral obligation, not only upon those who have an 
immediate and responsible connection with slavery, but upon every 
individual subject of the government under which it exists. 

" But how can I fulfil these duties ?" anxiously asks the Christian, 
the philanthropist, and the honest man. It is an inquiry which it 
well becomes them to make ; nor should they be content till a satis- 
factory reply is obtained. I design, presently, to give the outlines 
of an answer to the question. But in order to do so, it is necessary 
first to mention the more prominent obstacles to the performance of 
the duties indicated in the text. 

The first and earliest is the Compromise of the Constitution, which 
gave to slavery a legal existence in the United States. At the time 
of the adoption of the federal constitution, and in the convention 
which formed it, the subject of slavery was one of deep and anxious 
solicitude. Though the number of slaves was then comparatively small, 
— less than seven hundred thousand, — and the evils of slavery trifling 
compared with what they now are, yet those good men, coming fresh 
from their struggle for personal freedom, looked on the institution as 
a misnomer, and a palpable contradiction of their principles. Though 
some of them were slaveholders, they had a susceptible conscience. 
They viewed slavery as a crime ; as an evil not to be tolerated by a 
free people. And the only question in their minds was, whether it 
should receive at once a death-blow, and be peremptorily refused 
admission into the constitution, or whether it should be admitted 
under certain limitations, with a view to its gradual abolition. Con- 
trary to the personal wishes and best judgment of all the Northern 
members, and also of some of the slaveholders, it was admitted for 



8 

prudential reasons ; not by name, indeed ; — the battles of Lexington 
and Bunker Hill were events too recent for that. Their feelings 
would not permit them to disgrace the instrument by the name of 
slave. But they allowed it to enter, in fact. Most unfortunate was 
that stroke of policy ! Our patriotic fathers — we cannot much blame 
them for it. They were all unconscious what they were doing. They 
had no idea that slavery was ever to go beyond the limits of the 
original thirteen states, or that it would continue in them any longer 
than a brief period of years. They had no intention of burdening 
us, their children, with this awful load. They thought they saw the 
worst of the evil. Moreover, they fully expected the free states 
would receive at least an equivalent for Southern property represent- 
ation, by direct taxes upon the same " chattels personal," to meet 
the expenses of the government. But even this poor recompense 
has not, in fact, been obtained by them. The South has all the 
advantage of the compromise, in representation and in electoral votes ; 
and the North, in revenue by tariff, pays three-fourths of all the 
expenses of government.* 

Alas ! for that sad compromise. Had those worthy men one 
remote idea that the demon of slavery would have stalked forth out 
of the original thirteen states, overrun our fair territories, taken 
quiet possession of new states, annexed boundless foreign possessions, 
waged Avar upon neighboring free nations, seated itself in the Capi- 
tol, insulted the free states, and legislated for the continent, they 
would have suffered torture and annihilation before they had set their 
hands to such an instrument. But they did it, and meant to be 
prudent ; and there it is still in the constitution, a formidable obsta- 
cle in the way of freedom. 

But, secondly, this obstacle has been swelled to mountain size by 
subsequent national legislation in favor of slavery. The slavehold- 
ers, used to tyranny, being " nursed, educated, and daily exercised 
in it,"f soon began the effort to practice it, not only upon their slaves, 
but over the whole free North, on the floor of Congress. Their first 
attempts were not firmly enough resisted, and they gained their 
point. They were emboldened by success, and attempted still greater 
things. They knew their advantage, and were determined to keep 
it. Having a larger representation in Congress than was their proper 
share, — it being a representation of both persons and property, 
while that of the North was of persons only, — and having, also, more 
votes to bestow on a presidential candidate than the same number of 
freemen at the North, they decided, at once, on the policy to be 

* It may be thought by some that the North has gained an advantage by this compro- 
mise, in the equal representation of the states in the Senate. But if the "last census is 
examined, it will be seen that of the small states,whose population is less than one hundred 
thousand apiece, four out of five are slave states. And again, of the large States, containing 
one million and upwards each, three out of four are free states. Of these, one isN. York ; 
( ontaining a population greater than the whole population of eight slave states, represented 
by sixteen senators. This is what the North gains by compromising ! 

t Mr. Jefferson's " Notes on Virginia." 



pursued, in order to protect and perpetuate slavery. First, they 
themselves determined always to move in solid phalanx, irrespective 
of party, to sustain every measure favorable to the slave-power, and 
oppose everything adverse to it. Thus, while the representatives 
from the North, having no common bond of union, were divided 
in opinion and action, they acted in concert, and secured their ends. 
If they were likely to fail on any important measure, their electoral 
votes and slave representation gave them opportunity to play between 
parties, and accomplish by artifice what they could not effect by 
numerical strength. If both these seemed about to fail, they resort- 
ed to intimidation and menace.* The ever ready threat to dissolve 
the Union if their wishes were not consulted, accompanied, if neces- 
sary, with a significant shake of the clenched fist, or a gleam of the 
pistol-barrel, together with the too easy virtue and firmness of good- 
natured Northerners, have accomplished for them a complete triumph 
in our halls of national legislation. They have pursued their victo- 
ries to the present time. And now, at this moment, it is true that a 
band of one hundred thousand slaveholding voters, — a clique contempt- 
ible in numbers when compared with our eighteen millions, — hold the 
reins of the nation, and dictate supreme law on all measures of public 
concern, to more than ten millions of freemen in the free states, and 
five millions of non-slaveholders among themselves. So that our 
coimtry is in fact an oligarchy, as truly as w x as Athens under its 
thirty tyrants, except that, instead of thirty, we have a hundred 
thousand. This ascendency, however, was not all gained at once. 
There has been a regular and constant progression. Step by step 
the slaveholders have advanced, just so fast as freemen could be 
wheedled or threatened into retreat. 

One of the earliest measures, as far back as 1790, was an attempt 
to oppress and degrade free blacks. They were by law excluded, if 
aliens, from becoming American citizens ; were not suffered to belong 
to the army, or participate in the national defence ; and, subsequently, 
were prohibited from carrying any United States mail, or driving any 
mail carriage. No matter how vile, intemperate and abandoned, a 
driver of the mail coach is, so he be white. Such is the language of 
this law. But if his complexion be sallow, and his hair a little curly, 
let his talents and character be that of a Toussaint, he may not guide 
a horse upon a mail route, under a penalty of fifty dollars. 

The next step was the abolition of trial by jury in the case of alleged 
fugitives from one state into another. Provision had been made in 
the constitution for the surrender of persons held to service in one 
state, escaping hi to another, when claimed by the party to whom 

* In 1836, Gov. (then Mr.) Hammond, of South Carolina, said in Congress,in a speech: 
"I warn the abolitionists, ignorant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall 
throw any of them into our hands, he may expect a, felon's death" Mr. Preston said in 
1838: " Let an abolitionist come within the borders of South Corolina; if we can catch 
him, we will try him, and notwithstanding all the interference of all the governments on 
earth, including the federal government, we will hang him." Volumes might be filled, 
with similar specimens of the chivalry and nobility of the South ! 



10 

such service was due. It is altogether reasonable and proper, how- 
ever, that such a claim should be established before a jury, in order 
to be valid. Otherwise, no free citizen, of a swarthy skin, would be 
safe from a slaveholder's rapacity. Nevertheless, Congress, in 1793, 
enacted a law, without any authority from the constitution to do so, 
which leaves it to the decision of any justice of the peace or magis- 
trate in any city or village in the United States, whether a person 
thus claimed as a fugitive slave shall be delivered up on such a 
requisition or not. No trial by jury is allowed in a case involving 
perpetual liberty or slavery, although this safeguard is proffered by 
the constitution when the matter in question is a sum of money over 
twenty dollars ! Can it be that this is the value set by republican 
America upon the inalienable right of liberty ? Yet such is the law. 
To the present day it is unaltered. It exposes every citizen, no 
matter what his rank or station, to gross insult and abuse. Let a 
stranger appear in Massachusetts, and say he comes from a distant 
State, and let him bribe or in any way persuade a justice of the 
peace — and all of them have not the integrity of a Daniel • — to issue 
his warrant, declaring you or me to be his runaway slave, and there 
is no lawful power in this commonwealth to prevent our being carried 
off by him to Washington, Charleston, or Mobile, sold into slavery, 
and driven by the whip on a cotton plantation, till life is worn out 
with cruelty and unremitting toil. This is the way slaveholders mar 
our statute-book.* 

The next step was the admission of new slave states from territo- 
ry not originally belonging to the United States. This was contrary 
to the constitution, even as Mr. Jefferson understood it, but it was 
carried by the overseers. In 1811, Louisiana was admitted as a 
state, and slavery legalized in it. And in 1820, by the infamous 
Missouri compromise, slavery marched rampant up to forty and a 
half degrees north latitude, over the fertile prairies of the Mississippi 
valley, notwithstanding that the line of freedom, above which oppres- 
sion must not go, had been long before established as low down as the 
thirty-seventh degree. Since that time, Arkansas and Florida, and 
still later, Texas, have been admitted on the same footing. 

It is unnecessary for me, in tracing the progress of our national 
legislation, to go through the pitiful history of the suppression 
of the right of petition in Congress, though fully guarantied 
by the constitution, by which the voice of hundreds of thou- 
sands of freemen, who had a right to be heard by our rulers, 
has been ignominiously silenced, and their expressed wishes thrown 
contemptuously under the table. Nor is it requisite that the attempts 
of the government to establish a censorship of the press be here 



* Our government, in its devotion to slavery, has gone much further than this in the 
pursuit of fugitive slaves. It has made repeated and vigorous attempts to persuade Great 
Britain to restore those who have fled to Canada. But the invariable answer of that gov- 
ernment has been — " It is impossible for us to agree to such a stipulation." " The law of 
Parliament gives freedom to every slave who effects his landing on British ground." 



11 

developed ; the postmaster general having refused to condemn the 
riotous seizure and burning, in the streets of Charleston, of papers 
transported in the mail, at the same time broaching the remarkable 
doctrine that "it is patriotism to disregard the laws," when the 
interests of the "domestic institution" are at stake. Neither is it 
important to allude to numerous infringements of the freedom of 
debate in the House of Representatives, where, if anywhere, the 
people ought to be heard ; but where, by the operation of the " pre- 
vious question," by gag-laws, by intimidation, and various other 
artifices, the people's voice has been stilled, and highly important 
measures, which ought to have been thoroughly sifted, have been 
pushed to the final issue, by a silent vote. Nor is there need of 
allusion to the Florida war, so closely comiected with the slavchold- 
ing interest in that section of country. Nor does it devolve on me 
to reiterate the story of Texas, annexed with the preposterous intent 
of extending the area of freedom by enlarging the domain of slavery ; 
a measure gloried in by the whole South, because of the undoubted 
support and advantage which will accrue to the slave interest. Nor 
is it deemed necessary to dwell at length upon that last act in the 
drama, the Mexican Avar, with its immense expense of property and 
of human life,' without doubt commenced and conducted mainly to 
confirm the balance of power in the hands of the South, and settle 
the policy of this government forever.* 

The heart sickens at the recital — yea, at the thought, of what the 
slave power has accomplished, and is now effecting in these United 
States. The legislation of Congress, from the day of the adoption 
of the constitution down to the very last moment and second of its 
last session, has been substantially the creature of slavery, notwith- 
standing it is among the avowed objects of that constitution, and, 
therefore, of the legislation founded upon it, to " establish justice, and 
secure the blessings of liberty.'''' 

When any important issue wdiatever has been presented, either 
Southern measures have been carried triumphantly, and Northern 
measures defeated, or else the matter has been subjected to some 
compromise, which has, in fact, amounted to the same thing. The 
whole body of the national legislation of republican America has 
gone to establish and cement a despotism more grinding and cruel 
than that of the Autocrat of Russia or the Pacha of Egypt ; to up- 
hold an institution that half-civilized Mexico long since abolished ; 
and which the Bey of Tunis and King of Dahomey conscientiously 
consider too disgraceful and inhuman to pollute a barbarian soil. 



* An editor in Georgia, as quoted by the National Intelligencer, remarks : "Every battle 
fought in Mexico, and every dollar expended there, must tell upon the acqusition of terri- 
tory which will widen the field of Southern enterprise, and extend the domain of Southern 
power. The result of this war will be to secure to the South the balance of power in the 
confederacv, and for all coming timeto giveher the control in the operations of the govern- 
ment. Yes, let the South now be true to herself, and the days of her vassalage are gone, 
awl gone forever." This is a frank avowal of the truth. If slavery, in its vaulting ambi- 
tion, does not overleap itself in this war, it will secure a position from which it cannot be 
dislodged. 



12 

A third obstacle has been thrown in the way of effort for the 
slave, by the servility of Northern politicians to the slave power. The 
slaveholders have always been in a minority in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and, until lately, in the Senate, also ; yet they have always 
managed to control the Congress. How have they done it ? Plainly 
by the help of a portion of the Northern members. How was their 
help obtained ? In one of three ways : either by intimidating them 
with threats, circumventing them by artifice, or buying them with 
office. The slaveholders have found that the opinion of a member 
will sometimes change remarkably when he views the subject through 
the medium of a foreign court, or a secretaryship. They have ever 
had great facilities for this sort of action, in the fact of having had a 
slave-owning president most of the time, whose extensive patronage 
has enabled him to shower his bounties very liberally upon the heads 
of his slaveholding friends, and also upon those who, though not 
slave-owners, were believed to be true to that sectional interest. If 
Northern men share the honors in the gift of the government, it 
must be generally by virtue of their " Southern principles." Ac- 
cordingly, a large majority of all the offices under the government, 
and more than three-fourths in the army and navy, are held by 
slaveholders. Even the supreme judiciary has a majority of ; . slave- 
holding members on the bench, including the present chief justice 
himself; men set to dispense justice to a nation, who, themselves, 
violate its first principles every day in their families. 

It appears, then, that most of the patronage of the government is 
in the hands of slave-owners. There is reason to believe great use 
is made of it in the popular branch of Congress. And Northerners, 
having both ambition and avarice in common with their fellow-men, 
sometimes become its objects. Those who cannot be thus affected, 
are reached by various other means. Were it not so, the South, 
being in a minority in Congress, could never carry her legislative 
measures. Some portion of the Northern delegation must lend itself 
to the accomplishment of their execrable purposes. If the North 
had been true to herself, we should not have come to such dishonor. 
Our glorious ensigns would never have been trailed in the dust, as 
they have been by the hands of those who ought to have stood by 
the right, and not have bowed the knee to the Baal of oppression. 

The Missouri compromise was effected by the help of Northern 
votes ; and three from Massachusetts — I blush to say it — helped to 
do the deed. The resolution which was passed by a large majority 
in May, 1836, ordering all petitions, relating in any way, or to any 
extent whatever, to the subject of slavery, to he on the table without 
being printed or referred, or any further action had on them what- 
ever, was voted for by sixty-two members from the free states. 
Without them it could not have become a law. Similar resolutions 
were for some time annually repeated, and, in one instance, even 
moved by a New England man ! * For the space of ten years, such 

* Mr. Atherton, of New Hampshire. 



13 

petitions were " neither received by the House, nor entertained in 
any way whatever;" all this, too, by the acquiescence of Northern 
men. And can we of the North be guiltless, when our representa- 
tives go to Washington, and there vote, year after year, to close the 
mouths of free men and women in the New England states, and 
deny the right of peaceable petition to their own constituents, who 
have had the magnanimity — nay, rather the justice — to proffer a re- 
spectful request in behalf of the poor and needy ; and who have had 
Christianity or humanity enough to obey the command in the text, 
and try to defend the oppressed and the fatherless ? Though such 
conduct is seen to be utterly indefensible and highly criminal, yet it 
has repeatedly occurred, and often passed unrebuked. 

In the Congress which annexed Texas to the United States, there 
were eighty-eight members from the slave states, and one hundred 
and thirty-five from the free. It may be seen, at a glance, how many 
proved faithless to freedom, who might have prevented that deed if 
they had stood firm at the crisis. 

Substantially the same thing is true with regard to all the legisla- 
tion in Congress, whether it relate to private claims or public mea- 
sures ; to wars, tariffs or banks ; to the District of Columbia, the 
public defence, the distribution of the surplus revenue, or the sale of 
public lands; — all result uniformly in the benefit of the South, 
through the servility and tame acquiescence of the North. Truly did 
John Randolph remark, years ago, in debate, (though it was not half 
so true then as it has become since,) "We do not govern the people 
of the North by our black slaves, but by their own white slaves. 
We know what we are doing. We have conquered you once, and 
we can, and we will, conquer you again. Ay, Sir, we will drive 
you to the wall, and when we have you there once more, we mean to 
keep you there, and nail you down, like base money." The slave- 
holders boast of this every day. They know that if they have a 
favorite measure to be carried, they can, in the use of the various 
means before alluded to, secure enough Northern votes to effect their 
purpose. They always have ; I was about to say they always will. 
But it cannot be believed. There is a stopping place. God grant 
we may have nearly reached it ! There is a time coming, when the 
eyes of the blind shall be opened ; when we of the North shall no 
longer be slaves, bowing and cringing to the duelling aristocracy of the 
South, but shall stand erect for freedom, for truth, and for God.* 

* In support of the views advanced relative to the control of Congress by the South, I 
quote from a speech of J. Q. Adajis, made in Weymouth, 1842. " Ihere are two differ- 
ent party divisions always operating in the House of Representatives of the U. States; one, 
sectional — North and South — or, in other words, slave and free; the other, political — Whig 
and Democratic. The Southern or slave party, outnumbered by the free, are connected 
together by one intense interest of property, to" the amount of §1,200,000,000, in human 
beings. * # * "* The House of Representatives of the United States is a representa- 
tion only of the persons and freedom of the North, and of the persons, property and slavery 
of the South. The practical operation of this has been to fix the balance of the power, in 
the House, and in every department of the government, in the hands ofthemmoriiy of mem- 
bers. What are we to t hink , when we are told that the government of the United States 
is a democracy of numbers ? Do vou not see that the representatives'of persons, propertv 
9 



14 

& fourth obstacle which lies in the way of doing good to the slave, 
is the countenance winch religion has given to this institution. This 
is even more cruel and disheartening than the last. We are not sur- 
prised that the facile virtue of the politician should waver, but we 
are both surprised and pained when we see the integrity of the 
Christian to falter. The church at the South has been these fifty 
years bemoaning the evils of slavery, and during all this period has 
been feeding it, — first, when it was young, with the milk of the 
wor( j — Du t 5 now it has grown so great, with the strong meat of the 
gospel. It has preached often enough from the text, " Servants, 
be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, 
with fear and trembling ; " and perhaps from this, " Masters, give 
unto your servants that which is just and equal," inculcating from 
this passage the duty of treating them kindly — not of setting them 
at liberty ; but never from tins, " Woe unto him that useth his neigh- 
bor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work ; " nor 
from this, " He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found 
in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." The church has 
either been most criminally blind, or else has not dared to present 
such truths as these. It has held up a mutilated gospel before the 
mind of master and slave ; one shorn of its beauty, and deprived of 
its vigor and majesty. Having shunned, either through ignorance, 
policy, or fear, to declare the whole counsel of God, it has been con- 
tent to present it in fragmentary portions, entirely omitting some of 
its most important applications. It has argued to support the institu- 
tion from the practice of the patriarchs, and from the teachings of 
the apostles, as if it were unquestionably true that every kind of 
servitude is the same, and as if it were an acknowledged fact that 
God has established, as an unalterable institution, everything which 
he may have temporarily allowed on account of the hardness of the 
heart of man. 

For a long time, the church at the North seemed to be in a trance 
on the subject — observing all that was going on, but giving it no heed. 
Of late it is beginning to shake off its sloth, and already the greater 
portion of Northern Christians have disavowed all responsible con- 
nection with slavery, and thus endeavored to throw off the guilt and 
pollution of any longer connivance at this huge iniquity. Neverthe- 
less, then duty is not yet performed ; and there are few Christians, 
even at the North, who can conscientiously say that " they have done 



another speech made in Congress, he said. "The slaveholding states have secured the 
entire, control of the national jmlky, and, almost without exception, the possession of the 
highest executive office in the Union." 

John Davis said, many years ago, in the Senate, "This interest (slavery) has ruled the. 
destinies of the republic. For forty out of fifty-eight years it has given us a" president, and 
through him has held and used, in its own way, the whole organization of the departments, 
and all the vast and controlling patronage incident to that office, to aid it in carrying out 
its views and policy, as well as to protect and secure to it every advantage." 



15 

what they could" to "loose the bands of wickedness," and "lei 
the oppressed go free." 

The Southern church still soundly sleeps. She has never serious- 
ly undertaken to awaken the slaveholder's conscience. She lias 
never attempted to break down those "moral barriers," which, by 
their own confession, do now shield and protect them. She is con- 
tented to rebuke and expose only some of the minor evils, such as 
cruelty and excessive extortion on the part of masters, while she 
holds the broad regis of Christianity over the fundamental principles 
of slaveholding, of which these are only a few of the natural and 
necessary fruits. 

This is a great and alarming obstacle to be encountered in the work 
of bursting the fetters of the slave. The injury it has done is incal- 
culable. The obstacles thrown in the way of freedom by national 
legislation, serious as they are, are no greater than those interposed 
by religion. The course taken by the church on this subject has 
laid a nattering unction to the conscience of the slaveholder, and 
confounded in his mind the distinctions of right and wrong. It is 
impossible to estimate how much her support has done to perpetuate 
this stupendous iniquity. No doubt one of the prime causes of its 
rapid increase is the fact that moral and Christian men have given 
it their sanction : and even ministers of the gospel have owned 
slaves and traded in them, and still do it, without experiencing the 
censures of the church. 

It is the opinion of many cautious and sagacious men, that the in- 
stitution of slavery would continue but a limited period, were the 
power of the Christian religion brought to bear directly against it. 
It is of itself so intrinsically wicked, and every natural result of it 
is so horrible, that it would fall of its own weight, were the props 
which sustain it but taken away. Is it not a burning shame, that the 
religion of Jesus Christ, which has for its foundation the law of love, 
and whose universal precept is the golden rule, should be a principal 
support of a system of unparalleled iniquity — one which Wesley has 
characterized as " the sum of all villanies ?" Here is an impediment 
to the free course of truth and righteousness, where we should least 
have expected it, and where it is least to be endured. 

Beyond all doubt, these obstacles, winch are by no means all that 
exist, though among the greatest, have exceedingly hedged up the 
way of doing good to the slave. We cannot expect that they will be 
immediately removed. It will require time to do it. But the work 
can be done ; in due time it mil be done, for the Lord reigneth. 

Were there difficulties even more formidable than these, to be en- 
countered, it would yet be our duty to obey the injunctions of the 
text. No embarrassments can absolve us from our obligations to de- 
fend the poor and fatherless, to do justice to the afflicted, and deliver 
the needy. 

But the question returns, " How can these duties he performed?" 

I reply, since many of the weapons of the " strong man armed " 



16 

have been obtained by national legislation, he must also be " bound " 
by national legislation. And, 

1. The constitution ought to he so amended as to abolish property 
representation. The representation of all the states should be on 
the same basis. Either let the property of the North be represented 
in Congress, or confine that of the South to its free citizens. " There 
is," said our beloved Washington, " only one proper and effectual 
mode by which the abolition of slavery can be accomplished, and that 
is by legislative authority. And this, so far as my suffrage will go, 
shall never be wanting." It should be recollected that our laws are 
not like those of the Medes and Persians, that change not. Our 
legislation is peculiarly fickle. There is no government in the world, 
among the greater Powers, in which there are so frequent changes of 
the laws. Even our constitution may be altered. It has been. 
The instrument itself provides for amendments, and points out the 
manner of them. The father of his country understood the matter; 
and, though a slaveholder, avowed his Christian determination to 
vote for the abolition of slavery, whenever and wherever his vote 
could effect it. When our senators and representatives become pos- 
sessed of his political integrity and moral honesty, they will be ready 
to do the same. True, the compromise of the constitution cannot 
be touched without the help of some of the slave states, and, there- 
fore, this amendment is not a measure of immediate practicability. 
Yet, as it is the root of the evil, it deserves the first mention, though 
it may be the last of the strong holds of oppression to resist the 
force of truth. 

2. The laiv should be repealed by which citizens claimed as fugi- 
tive slaves are denied a trial by jury. The right of trial by jury is 
one of the precious privileges of freemen. It is one of the funda- 
mental rights our fathers bled for. And it is a sin and a shame 
tamely to give it up. Besides, it is believed that the law is uncon- 
stitutional. The constitution imposes an obligation on the states to 
surrender fugitives, but it confers no power on Congress to legislate 
upon the maimer in which it shall be done. That is for the states 
to define. For all powers, not expressly yielded to Congress, are 
reserved to the people of the states. Yet Congress has arrogantly 
undertaken to point out the maimer of recovering fugitives ; and, in 
doing so, it has, by law, torn away the protection of jury trials from 
the citizens of the whole free North, whether white or black. Say 
not there is no danger of their kidnapping our free citizens.* If 

* It is a notorious fact, that many of the victims of the American slave-trade are white, 
men and women, and native born Americans. This may be gathered from the advertise- 
ments in Southern papers. They are frequently like the following: 

" $100 Reward will be given for the apprehension of my negro, Edmund Kenncv. He 
has straight hair, and a complexion so nearly white that it is believed a stranger would 
suppose there was no African blood in him. 'He escaped under pretence of being a white 
- MAN - Anderson Bowles." . 

' $100 Reward.— Ran away from the subscriber, a bright mulatto man-slave, named 
Sam. light sandy hair, blue eyes, ruddy comphmm — is so white as very easily to pass for 
a/ree white man. ' Edwin Peck." 

If such men as these were not stolen from the free states, they must have been subjects 
of the well-known bkacking process, which is even more horrible. 



17 

there is not, there stands the law, with all its manifest injustice, un- 
repealed, a foul and hateful blot upon the statute book: an index 
alike of the tyranny of the South and the servility of the North. It 
is true that Massachusetts, and several other Northern states, have 
passed laws, making it criminal to surrender fugitives without trial by 
jury. But those laws are in fact nugatory, and the law of the United 
States is supreme until it is repealed. Can we allowthat statute to 
remain quietly in force, and yet be innocent of a participation in its 
guilt ? Shall we, living almost within sight of the " Cradle of 
Liberty," bow down with craven hearts, and kiss the feet of this 
Dagon ? 

3. The Supreme Court of the United States should be at once opened 
to the citizens of the free states. It is scarcely credible, hut yet 
painfully true, that slavery has closed the doors of our national 
judiciary against the free states, and, for the present, has effectually 
shut them out, and silenced the voice of their just complaints. 1 I is 
even so. The free citizens of Massachusetts, piratically seized from 
our vessels by " chivalrous " South Carolina and Louisiana, and im- 
prisoned in loathsome dungeons, are not permitted to go into our 
federal courts — the proper and constitutional tribunals in such a 
case — and tell the story of their wrongs. A guard of slave-owners 
keep the doors with whips. The freeman who goes to claim their pro- 
tection, and takes the proper steps to institute a legal process, though 
he be one of Massachusetts' most honored sons, is met at the outset 
with threats of personal violence, and even death — is branded 
slave-stealer, fanatic and incendiary, and violently driven home ! 
And we are citizens of that state ! Well, Ave are able to suffer 
wrong ; better able than they are to do wrong. We can be Christian 
while they are infuriate, and leave retribution to Almighty God. 

Christianity, however, does not require us to yield up to tyrants 
the boon of Heaven. We should stand upon the rock of the consti- 
tution, and demand our just rights. Hear its language : " The 
citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and im- 
munities of citizens in the several states." The constitution has 
been nullified. As things now are, this provision might as well not 
be there. It is a dead letter. It devolves on the Congress to give 
it spirit and life. The whole Northern delegation in that body are 
bound, by their own self-respect, by the laws of patriotism and hu- 
manity, by the love of truth and justice, to clear away the rubbish of 
oppression, and open the courts to the people. 

4. Slavery ought to be abolished in the District of Columbia. 
That district — the part of it not ceded back — is under the entire 
control and regulation of Congress ; " exclusive jurisdiction over it 
in all cases whatsoever" having been given by the constitution. 
As one of the states, Massachusetts, through her Congressional del- 
egation, has a share in this absolute government. And if Massa- 
chusetts has a right to abolish slavery in Massachusetts, she has a 

9* 



18 

right to do the same, so far as her influence can effect it, in Wash- 
ington. Her control is no more than " exclusive " on her own soil ; 
it is all that, in common with the other states, in the District of Co- 
lumbia . And yet slavery exists there, under peculiar aggravations. 
The old barbarous slave-codes of Virginia and Maryland were 
adopted, by law of Congress, for the regulation of the district. Stat- 
utes are still in force there, which ar^ so tyrannical and cruel that 
the contiguous states have abolished them ; leaving to the free 
states the bad pre-eminence of enforcing laws that are too horrible 
for kidnappers ! * Congress has repeatedly refused to act upon the 
subject of slavery in this district, except to make laws in its support. 
In the year 1836, eighty-two Northern men voted that Congress 
ought not to interfere, in any way, with slavery in the District of 
Columbia. Are we not verily guilty in allowing the weight of our 
suffrages to be lent to the consummation of such wickedness ? 

Do but consider, my friends, what a burning shame it is for the 
capital of these independent states, boasting of their liberty and 
progress, to be a slave-mart, with its barracoons and man-pens, its 
handcuffs and auction-stands ! the great slave-mart of North Amer- 
ica, as truly and as wickedly so as any that exist on the coast of 
Africa ! Ay, and all this in full view of the national edifice, where 
that noble instrument is deposited whose head and front bears the 
sentiment that " all men are created equal," and endowed with 
rights inalienable. What a stupid, senseless mockery ! What a 
stench in the nostrils of those who came over the sea to behold with 
their own eyes the admirable workings of free institutions ! Is it 
any thing less than a moral hallucination which has taken possession 
of the faculties of the people, that they do not immediately insist on 
having a short work made, in righteousness, with slave-buying, sell- 
ing and holding, in the nation's capital. Until our twelve men in 
Congress have done their duty on this point, we are not guiltless. f 

If it still be said, and conscientiously believed, that Congress has 
not the power to abolish slavery in that district, then let it be ceded 

*I will give two specimens of them : " A slave convicted of setting fire to a building, 
shall have his head cut off, and his body divided into quarters, and the parts set up in the. 
most public places. 

" A free negro may be arrested and put in jail for three months, on suspicion of being a 
runaway ; and if he is not able to prove his freedom in twelve months, he is to be sold as a 
slave, to pay his jail fees !" There are hundreds of free men, both black and white, 
that could not prove their freedom, under such circumstances ; and for this crime they are 
reduced to perpetual bondage by the authority of Congress! And the North consents to'it! 

t To show that I have not exaggerated this matter, I quote from the Alexandria Gazette: 
" Scarcely a week passes without some of these wretched creatures being driven through 
our streets. After having been confined, and sometimes manacled, in a loathsome prison, 
they are turned out in public view to take their departure for the South. The children, 
and some of the women, are generally crowded into a cart or wagon, while others follow 
on loot, not unfrequently handcuffed and chained together. Here vou may behold fathers 
and brothers, leaving behind them the dearest objects of affection, and moving slowly 
along m the mute agony of despair. There the young mother, sobbing over the infant 
whose innocent smiles seem but to increase her misery. From some vou will hear the 
burst ol bitter lamentation, while from others the loud hysteric laugh breaks forth, denoting 
still deeper agony." Merciful God ! forgive the congress of a country bearing the name of 
<- nnst, thy bon ; and visit not in judgment upon them their participation in this guilt! 



19 

back at once to the states of Maryland and Virginia. Let it all go, 
but the public buildings, works and grounds. If slavery must be 
protected, it should be by those who profess to believe it right, and 
who can do it consistently. But let the free states " wash their 
hands in innocency" of all participation in the matter. 

5. The domestic slave-trade should be prohibited by laiv. Power 
is vested in Congress, by the constitution, " to regulate commerce 
with foreign nations, and among the several states." Upon the 
strength of this provision alone, Congress has abolished the foreign 
slave-trade, making it piracy, and punishable with death. The gov- 
ernment has also prohibited the coasting slave-trade in vessels under 
forty tons burden. But yet it allows unrestrained traffic in vessels 
over that size ; and permits forty thousand slaves to be sold annually, 
from the State of Virginia alone, into the more Southern slave states, 
at a cost of twenty-four millions of dollars, or an average of six hun- 
dred dollars a head. Consistency is a jewel. Would that our North- 
ern members of Congress knew it. If the slave-trade is piracy in one 
place, why is it not in another ? If it is an illegal traffic in vessels 
of thirty-nine tons, why should it not be in vessels of forty-one tons 
burden? If it is visited with the severest penalty of the law on the 
open sea, why should it not be on a free shore ? A difference of 
place merely, can make no difference in the absolute guilt of buying 
and selling temples of the Holy Ghost. 

There is, in truth, reason to believe that the foreign slave-trade 
has been carried on to some extent since it was declared piracy, and 
that slaves have been repeatedly imported into the Southern states 
from the West India Islands;* but through the negligence or connivance 
of the government authorities, no perpetrator of this crime has ever 
been brought to justice. Apart from the horrors of the " middle 
passage," the domestic slave-trade is no more tolerable than the 
foreign. It is an impeachment of our national humanity, that they 
are not both alike suppressed. A full stop might be put to the 
foreign trade ; the domestic might be declared highly criminal, and 
if not entirely suppressed, at least greatly checked. Here is work 
which ought immediately to be done. Massachusetts is allowing the 
domestic slave-trade, both inland and coast-wise. 

G. Let no more slave territory be added to the United States, and 
no more slave states be created. Congress has full power to pre- 
vent it, and a perfect right to do it. If this government can say 
slavery shall not exist in our new territory north of a certain paral- 
lel, it can also say it shall not exist south of it. If it can direct, 



* Lest it should be supposed that I speak without book on this point, I quote from Judge 
Stoiy, who said, in a charge to a Grand Jury, as follows : 

" We have but too many proofs, from unquestionable sources, that the African slave 
trade is still earned on with all the implacable ferocity and insatiable rapacity of _ former 
times. Avarice has grown more subtle in its evasion-, ami watches and seizes its prey 
with an appetite quickened rather than suppressed by its guilty vigils. Ainerkan citizens 
are steeped to tJieir very moutJis (I can scarcely use too bold a figure,) in this stream of 
iniquity." 



20 

control, and legislate for slavery in the public domain, it can also 
prohibit it. Now is the time to do so. The designs of slaveholders 
are fast revealing themselves. They are either on the eve of a com- 
plete triumph, or a tremendous fall. We are in the valley of decision 
on the most important question that ever shook the nation. This is 
the favored time for the free states to rise up in their majesty, and 
say to the tide of oppression, " Thus far shalt thou come, but no 
farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." We are ac- 
quiring new territory by conquest. Those who are most eager for 
its acquisition, are determined that it shall be pervaded throughout 
by slavery. It is for the free states to say calmly, but with the 
firmness of the everlasting hills, it shall not be done. 

Though our Union be extended quite to Oregon ; though it em- 
brace California and Mexico, Chiapas and Guatemala, even to the 
Isthmus of Darien, not another inch of the soil ought to be polluted 
with slavery. It can be prevented. The power to do it resides in 
the House of Bepresentatives. The constitution gives the right to 
prevent it. And nothing but the apathy, or the treachery and ser- 
vility of the North, will spread the blackness of moral and physical 
desolation over any portion of our unblighted heritage. If one vote 
in the Massachusetts delegation is lent to such a nefarious project — 
if one voice is dumb when such schemes are agitated on the floor of 
Congress, it will disgrace our state for ever, and dabble our proud 
escutcheon with the crimson of innocent blood. 

Such are some of the points toward which, in my view, legislative 
action ought to be directed. But while urging attention to them, I 
utterly disavow any revolutionary feelings or purposes. Few think- 
ing men have any desire to see this Union dissolved. Our better 
course, by far, is to continue muted. Thus shall we best fulfil the 
intentions of our fathers ; thus shall we best secure national prosper- 
ity. Nor would I use any influence to array the North against the 
South in feeling or interest. Sectional and local prejudices are ever 
to l)e avoided. They engender bigotry and strife. We may have a 
righteous hatred of Southern oppression along with a Christian love 
of Southern people. We may clearly point out to our countrymen 
of the free states the impositions which slaveholding influence is 
practicing upon them, and yet breathe toward slave-owners them- 
selves no spirit but that of Christian forgiveness. " Faithful are the 
wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." I 
have, therefore, endeavored to state important truth without conceal- 
ment, and to recommend, in the spirit of enlarged philanthropy, such 
things only as are adapted to the exigencies of the case, and of bene- 
ficial tendency. 

At this point I may be met by some who will say, " This is all 
very well ; your recommendations are good ; and if we were mem- 
bers of Congress, our course would be plain. But being only private 
citizens, what can we do to uproot this great evil, or benefit the 
slave ? " In answer to this question, I would say : 



21 

Take care how you vote. If you arc not in Congress yourseh ■ 
you send others there. At the polls, each one of you has as much 
influence as any citizen of the United States ; and j, our vote will tell 
as much as theirs upon any political or moral question. Are the 
men for whom you vote such as arc true to freedom's cause ? Have 
they hearts resolute as steel ? Is their political conduct such as to 
"defend the poor, and do justice to the afflicted and needy?" Be 
sure to exercise your prerogative, and fulfil your duty at the ballot- 
box; but do it as those who must give an account thereof to Grod. 
I do not designate the ticket you should vote. That is for you to 
decide. I do not advise you to join the ranks of any particular 
organized party, whether it be Native American, Liberty, Whig, 
Democratic, or Independent. It is for you to take your stand 
according to the dictates of an enlightened judgment and conscience. 
My own position, as a minister, is above all party ; for, viewed as 
such, apart from fundamental principles, all parties arc to me alike. 
In the choice of our riders and legislators, my vote will ever be 
deposited, not for the nominee of any party, but for the man who 
will stand in his lot and do his duty, though all the powers of wicked- 
ness combine against him. I would recommend the same course to 
others. Whatever your party, support oidy such men as will cleave 
to the right, and ever maintain an honest independence ; such men 
as will not compromise, will not apologize, but will openly, fearlessly, 
with patriotism, manliness, and far-reaching prudence, not with eye- 
service as men-pleasers, but in the fear of God, do as the text 
enjoins ; steadily oppose slavery by constitutional means in every 
one of its Protean shapes ; quietly and immovably insist upon taking 
every lawful measure to cripple its overgrown power, and abase its 
imperious arrogance. 

There are many who may not lawfully vote. Is there any thing 
for them to do ? Yes, much. 

Agitate the subject. Diffuse information. Awaken your own 
heart and conscience to the matter, and then impart your zeal to 
others. Say not that agitation on this topic is evil, and only evil. It 
is not so. It has already accomplished untold good. It is the very 
thing slaveholders most fear. " Every agitation of the subject of 
slavery," observed a North Carolina senator, " weakens the moral 
force in our favor, and breaks down the moral barriers which now 
serve to protect and secure us. We have everything to lose and 
nothing to gain by agitation and discussion." Similar to this is the 
testimony of Mr. Calhoun. " The war of the abolitionists is waged 
not against our lives, but against our characters." In the same 
spirit remarks Mr. Duif Green, an editor and a great champion of 
slavery. " We are of those who believe the South has nothing to 
fear from a servile war. We do not believe that the abolitionists 
intend, nor could they if they would, excite the slaves to insurrec- 
tion. The danger of this is remote. We believe that we have most 
to fear from their organized action upon the consciences and fears of 



22 

the slaveholders themselves ; from the insinuation of their dangerous 
heresies into our schools, our pulpits, and our domestic circles. It 
is only by alarming the consciences of the weak and feeble, and dif- 
fusing among our people a morbid sensibility on the question of 
slavery, that the abolitionists can accomplish their object." 

" I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." 

Let us, my friends, continue in the fear of God to " insinuate" such 
" dangerous heresies" as are found in the text, and elsewhere in the 
Bible, into every " school" and "pulpit" and " domestic circle" we 
can reach. Let us " alarm the conscience" of eveiy one who lives 
secure and thoughtless in this sin, or in connivance at it. Agitate 
the matter. There is no danger of its dissolving the Union. The 
North will not do this, and the South dares not. Agitate. Every 
man, woman and child can do it. A rectified pitblic opinion is the 
hope of the nation. 

Send the Bible to the Slave. He has it not. His Christian mas- 
ters do not furnish him with it. The Bible Society does not send it 
to him ; but refuses funds given for the purpose. The church, both 
north and south, is aware of it and has acquiesced in it. But all 
this does not make it right. Every responsible creature of God 
ought to know his will directly from his word. What though the 
way be hedged up, the hedges must be removed. Let but the church 
say " the slave shall have the Bible," and the work is done. Send 
in your funds to the American Bible Society. Designate them for 
this specific purpose. Let a respectable body of the supporters of 
that Society signify such a wish, and see if it is refused. Did they 
not well know that northern Christians are indifferent to this matter, 
they would long ago have urged southern Christians, with one long 
and undeniable appeal, that they would consent to have the Bible 
put into every family throughout the whole slave population. 

Purify the Church. Religion and the law are the two crutches 
upon which the tottering steps of slavery are stayed. While the 
latter is removed by legislation, let the former be taken away through 
Christian counsel and effort. It is to me a plain case that the 
church ought not to extend the hand of Christian fellowship to an 
enlightened, determined slaveholder. I employ and adopt the 
language of one of our most venerated, wise and excellent ministers. 
" I cannot hold that man a Christian brother who does to me or any 
one else the greatest injury which he can inflict. Although there 
may be those who, owing to circumstances beyond their control, stand 
in the character of slaveholders, who are to be pitied ; yet, in 
general, a participation in slavery must be a sin which should shut a 
man out of the church." The adoption and consistent carrying out, 
by the whole church, of the principle of no Christian fellowship with 
slaveholders, would be the death-knell of the institution. But while 
the testimony on that point is so greatly divided, slaveholders will 
strengthen themselves in the wrong. I put the question to you all : 



23 

Have you done every tiling that lies in your power, to purify the 
church of this abomination ? 

Pray for the Slave. Almighty God can overturn and overturn, 
until, in Ins wise providence, " liberty shall be proclaimed throughout 
the land, imto all the inhabitants thereof." He can soften the hard 
heart of cruelty. He can relax the iron hand of oppression, and 
snap its sinews 'in sunder. He can deliver the poor and the needy, 
in a way we know not of. He can rid them out of the hand of the 
wicked,* m a manner we never had anticipated. Let us, in prayer, 
remember before Him, those that are in bonds us bound with them ; 
praying as we act, and acting as we pray. 

Finally; Let us — every individual, do something, and do it in 
earnest. " Let us vote, who can. Let us preach, who may. Let us 
converse and pray, one and all. Let us give, who are able. _ Let 
us petition, remonstrate, protest, warn, intreat, and instruct, until we 
see the strong holds of iniquity finally broken up ; until this whole 
Union is clothed with that righteousness which exalteth a nation, 
having forever put away that sin which is a reproach to any people. 



54 I 



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Grans, lie Pi 
jan ■ Feo 1989 



